The Jam Speed Up To Slow Down, 1977

Have you forgotten – if only for a nanosecond – the brilliance of The Jam? Then return with us to 1977, when in the face of punk’s public renunciation of all the music that came before, Woking’s splenetic power trio celebrated the Mod and Motown sounds of some 15 years earlier. In this incandescent clip, Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton, and Rick Buckler tear into the 1958 Larry Williams song popularized by The Beatles on their Long Tall Sally EP (and, in the States, on their Matchbox single) in 1964.

The group’s fusion of vintage sensibility and thrashing punk energy transforms an arguable standard into a veritable explosion. For two minutes The Style Council, even English Rose or Dreams Of Children, seem a universe away.